Pluck (The Woodswalker Novels)

by Emilia S. Morrow

  “So you’re saying that people like me used to be like you?” she asked.

  Again, the sweet rat shrugged. It was not a no, simply a maybe. The idea made Briars head spin. Her ancestors could be bats, goats, or something totally lame like a turkey.

  “Or Adam and Eve. It’s a belief like anything else. It could be wrong.” She gave a happy smile. “Or they themselves came from snakes originally, who knows. If you ask a mink they will tell you something very different.”

  Briar did not know much about Woodswalker politics but she was pretty sure that was racism of some kind. She rolled over onto her back, looking at Briar upside down.

  “So what happened to you that he revealed himself to you?” she asked

  “Is that so rare?” Briar asked.

  “It isn’t done here,” Pepper said with an air of foreboding.

  “I ran off a cliff.” Briar motioned to her mangled leg. Pepper watched her for a moment with bright eyes before she realized Briar was serious.

  “Why did you run off a cliff? Are you okay?” Pepper flipped over to put her hands on Briars face. She seemed to have genuine concern for her. Briar could feel her cheeks warm under her hands.

  “I heard people talking ahead. I didn’t realize there was a cliff.” She felt embarrassed under Peppers concerned gaze. She should be dead right now if it was up to her idiocy.

  “You called out for help and they ran away?” Pepper asked. She nodded. What a specific question. Pepper's face changed. She pulled her hands away. “I’m sorry.” She looked away.

  A cunning fox of folklore turning into a man to lead the maiden to the path of temptation. She shivered at the thought of it. Was she the victim of something similar?

  “You think a woodwalker could have been there?” Briar asked, her mind churning away at that information.

  “I think so, yes.” Pepper repeated, looking anywhere but Briar.

  She was clearly uncomfortable, talking out here in the open. Maybe some things were too much at once. Pepper jumped up to her feet. She stole quick glances back at the forest.

  “Can I see you again? It’s nice having someone else to talk to,” Briar said.

  She could feel herself lightening by being with her. She reminded her a lot of Aster. Her heart felt heavy at the thought of her. She must be so worried. Briar hoped she did not blame herself for what happened.

  “I can come visit yes, but…” Suddenly her head snapped to attention. She melted back into her former body and scurried off into the woods. It was incredible to see how fast she disappeared from view.

  A few moments later he landed on the ground next to her, clutching a dove in each talon and a rat in his beak. He placed them down next to her and shifted back to his human form. She averted her eyes, hoping he would not be upset that she was out again.

  His hand went up to her face, gently turning it to face him. He felt so warm and safe. She wrapped her arms around him and didn’t want to let go. Her thin cotton slip was the only layer between them. She hoped time was enough to heal his mood with her.

  “Do you feel better?” she asked quietly. She cannot see his face, but she can feel his chest open up to let her in. He finally returned her embrace.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  They pull away for a moment, sharing a small smile. He placed a tentative kiss on her cheek. He did not comment on her being outside again. She was more relieved than she imagined.

  “Is that a yes?” she asked.

  He pulled her up to cradle her in his arms like a doll. Briar inhaled the deep scent of life from his chest. She had strange, intrusive thoughts of running through the woods. Her weary leg ached in response.

  “Yes.”

  He rushed her inside to lay her on the bed. She smiled to herself as he went back out for her stuff. He looked good walking away from her.

  He began to go through the motions of cooking her meal, plucking the feathers of the doves and skinning the rat. She felt uncomfortable looking at them.

  “I don’t want the rat, please,” she said quietly, staring at it.

  She was very hungry, but she felt uncomfortable. She wondered if that particular rat used to be human. He looked up at her with a puzzled expression, but set it aside regardless.

  The doves were defeathered, organs removed, and over the camp stove flame they went. She ate them, but without enthusiasm. She had met her second Woodswalker, and she did not attack. Pepper was excited to see her, not eager to kill her off.

  “Why do you think other Woodswalkers would attack me?” Briar asked. She was ready for an argument, but hoping for the best.

  “I told you. You could expose us,” he said. “It’s what has always happened.”

  “But why? Why would they assume the worst? Do they hate us?” She wondered exactly how much of his nature he had to fight to be near her.

  He shifted his weight from foot to foot, his eyes flicking to the wide expanse broken from the wall. “Before there was you, there was only us,” he said. “Everyone could use their second skin to communicate with each other better, to use tools to better their lives.”

  “Over time some plant eaters got sick of their role in the world, and began using their second skin exclusively. In these skins they could overpower most of the creatures they used to feed,” he said as if it were a horrible sin. It seemed reasonable to her. Nobody wants to be eaten, but everyone has to eat.

  “Over generations they lost their original soul. They forgot the truth of the world. Their eyes grew dull. Their children were born empty,” he said.

  Empty. The word repulsed her. He thought she was empty.

  “They could not accept their place in the balance. Their numbers kept growing, from their own children, and other woodswalkers who did not want to be crushed in the wake,” he said.

  The silence that followed was more than Briar could handle. He spread his hands out before her as if to show that was all the words he had for her. She did not press the matter further. Empty. He slipped into his true skin, hopping up onto the table amongst the dove guts.

  The owl bent his head down and snatched up the rat, head first. Leaning back, the rat slid down his throat whole. When he turned to face her, the tail was still hanging from his open beak. She turned over onto her side to look away. She kept her eyes shut, even as she felt him watching.

  Prey Instincts

  Briar stared at the water damaged ceiling above. There was a foul thought working its way through her self image. She was empty, there was nothing she could do to fill her second soul. When he noticed she was awake he got down from his perch and back into his human skin. He went around the cabin, switching lanterns on.

  “Good morning,” she said into the silence.

  The light must have revealed something in her eyes that worried him. He rushed to her side to feel her forehead. His brow furrowed as he removed his cold hand. His amber eyes peered down at her leg for other signs of damage.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  She doubted he would understand the foul mood that clung to her. Briar shrugged, chewing her bottom lip. He seemed even more distressed by this response. He did not go out the second he woke up as he often did. Instead, he started wandering around the room gathering items in a larger bag she had not seen before.

  “How would you like to go on an adventure today?” he asked, turning to her with a calculated smile. She could almost see the conscious thought put into every twist of muscle in his face.

  “What, like a date?” she asked with only mild sarcasm.

  “A date,” he nodded. She wasn’t sure if he knew what he agreed to.

  “Okay,” she said. She could not help but smile. He reached down to pick her up to leave.

  “Generally people bathe and put on clean clothes before a date,” Briar said. He looked over at her like he had not considered it before.

  Briar was already stronger than she had been the first time she had bathed. She was more capable of holding her body upright
. The creak in her bones was still present, but bearable. Briar’s attempts to pretend she was not seriously injured grew more successful with each passing night.

  She searched the shore for her old clothes with the intention of rubbing them under running water. She was so sure that this was the same stretch of shore. The stench of rot hung in the air, drawing forth the memory. She couldn’t be sure but it seemed like the same dead fish she had seen on the shore the first time.

  “I wonder where my clothes went,” she remarked quietly as she scrubbed the human stench from her sore skin. At least her normal coloration was beginning to peek through.

  He was bathing further downstream to give her some privacy. ‘Bathing’ being a very loose term, as he was mainly kneeling in the water uncomfortably.

  “They were probably carried away by the current,” he said, avoiding her eyes.

  Briar ran her hands along the surface of the water. It didn’t seem strong enough to her. Then again, she didn’t feel strong enough either.

  She once again mourned the lack of soap. When she thought he wasn’t looking she took a careful sniff of her now bushy underarms.

  “So where are we going?” she asked.

  His smile was bright as he lifted her out of the water with ease. He never smelled bad, despite his lack of formal bathing experience.

  “Somewhere wonderful.”

  ***

  She insisted on picking her own outfit. He placed her down in front of the dusty pile of mismatched fabric. If she was being honest, she didn’t want to touch most of it. But it didn’t feel normal letting her date pick out her outfit. And what she wanted right now was normal.

  She settled on a mostly clean pair of sweatpants and a souvenir shirt from the nearby town, Little River. It was a struggle to put the pants on over her cast, but she managed. She hoped she would not struggle as much if she had to remove them. She blushed at her own thoughts. He was wearing a pair of dark wash jeans and a heavy yellow wool sweater.

  They made their way onto the slick porch. Before she could step down the first step he shook his head.

  “It is too far for you to walk there yourself,” he said. He handed her the backpack he had packed earlier for her to put on. He got down on his knees in front of her. “Hop on,” he said.

  A piggy back ride. She laughed. She handed her crutches to him and hopped on, her arms around his neck and her legs around his thin waist. She was glad she was wearing pants now. He stands with ease.

  They began to make their way through the forest, in the opposite direction of the creek. The forest was dark, and they did not have a lantern out, but he found his way easily. This time they are going up the mountain. She can feel his pulse, slow and calm against her arms.

  They arrive at a clearing in the forest, a very small creek running alongside it. Barely a trickle, but enough to draw the fireflies. There were a few wildflowers dotting the floor here, all asleep in the moonlight. There were hundreds of fireflies, congregated at the far edge of the clearing. Briar gasped quietly as they came into view. It was more spectacular than any other display she had witnessed.

  He stopped in the center of the clearing, getting back down on his knees to let Briar get off. She slipped her legs off of his waist, but stayed attached to him for a moment. She was enraptured by the display all around them. His hands grasped hers. She pulled away, embarrassed.

  After she passed him his bag he pulled out an old quilt. Briar wondered where this blanket was when she was sleeping on musty animal skins. He laid out the blanket amongst the flower buds, inviting her to lay amongst them. The blanket was slightly damp from the dew on the ground.

  It reminded her of early morning forts on the front lawn. She wondered where Aster was doing out there in the real world. Had she gone back to her home yet? Or did she haunt these mountains just like Briar?

  He handed her a metal bowl full of berries, different kinds of leaves. Dinner and a show, she thought. She wondered when he went out and got this food. She noticed he didn’t bring any for himself.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Briar ate slowly. She was starving as she usually was at this time of night, but she was mesmerized by the magic all around her. When she finished eating she stretched out, enjoying the feeling of a blanket for the first time in weeks.

  Although she was indeed stronger than she was just a few days prior, the position was still enough to cause her weak muscles to throb. She flipped onto her back. The view here was less dramatic, a few stray fireflies blinking above and weaving between the far reaches of the branches like distant satellites.

  He scooted closer to her until their arms were just barely touching. She could feel the electricity there, the heat of the question. Will he hold her hand? His pinky grazed the side of hers, slowly working its way back and forth. She was spellbound by his touch.

  Almost without realizing they turned towards each other until they were face to face. He leaned in slowly, inching his way closer until they were almost touching noses. He seemed to want her to make the final decision. She gladly closed the gap. It had been a long time since someone gave her sweet romance. It was more potent than she remembered.

  Slow soft kisses turned to deeper, searching mouths. His hand stayed politely on her arm, but she was aching to be touched. They pulled away, gasping. In the sparse moonlight his eyes were almost human. They shined bright like pennies in a river. You knew they were poisoning the waters, but you were still desperate enough for a wish.

  “I love the fireflies,” she blurted out.

  At some point she must have drifted off in that meadow. She woke up sometime in the late night in the cabin, tangled up in his arms. She wondered for a moment if she had dreamed the whole thing. Across the room green eyes blinked in the darkness. Briar rubbed her own eyes, willing them to focus. They were fireflies, collected in a jar for her further enjoyment. She fell back asleep with a smile on her face.

  ***

  She woke up while the sun was still alive. It had been a long time since she had been in full sun. The bright lights made her eyes hurt from inside the cabin walls. She looked around the whole room through squinted eyes but could not see him anywhere.

  Getting up to go to the bathroom on her crutches she paused by the table. The fireflies had died in the night. She opened the jar, just to be sure. The lifeless insects stared back at her. She felt a twinge of guilt. He hadn’t thought to put air holes in the lid.

  After using the bathroom she wondered where he could have gone. The sun was hours away from setting. It made her uneasy to think about it. She tried to lay back down to go to sleep, but the thought of it just kept nagging her. He probably didn’t think she would wake before sundown.

  Seeing as though sleep refused to find her, Briar made her way out onto the porch. Maybe the fresh air would put her mind at ease. Maybe he would come home.

  A shock of impossibly pale skin stood under the shade of the surrounding trees. At the sound of her footsteps the figure turned. In the sunlight it was clear her new woodswalker friend was truly albino.

  In the daylight Pepper was squinting heavily. Her sensitive pink eyes could not handle the sun. Briar motioned for her to come inside, but Pepper got as far as onto the porch before she stopped. She could see her blood pulsing in her throat through her delicate skin. Maybe by some prey instinct, she would not venture into the predators den. Briar could understand that much at least.

  “What are you doing here?” Briar asked. She did not really care why, she was just glad for the company. She needed a distraction at this point.

  “I happened across your owl running over there,” Pepper motioned over her shoulder. “He looked pretty upset, so I thought I should check on you.”

  “Running?” Briar asked.

  Pepper nodded. Anxiety coiled tight within her stomach. She could see it so clearly in her mind's eyes.

  “But he can fly,” she pointed out dumbly.

  “Well yeah, that’s why I thought it was we
ird enough to mention.” Pepper snorted. “So are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m-” Briar stopped herself.

  The hair on her neck stood up. It felt a lie before it fully left her lips. There would be no room for lies here if something strange was going on with her host.

  “I really don’t know,” she said instead.

  “Well, what are you still doing here anyway?” Pepper said.

  “What do you mean?” Briar said.

  “Well from what I understood, you only needed to be here till you were well enough to leave,” she said.

  “Well, yeah,” Briar said.

  She avoided her pink eyes entirely. Pepper kneeled down to inspect her leg with soft hands.

  “You look pretty good to me.”

  At first, he said she was too sick to travel. She did not argue with this, she felt she was barely alive for days and days. But now she was healthy. Well, maybe not healthy. But strong enough to make it to a trail with assistance.

  She knew she should just ask him to take her back. More than anything she was afraid that if she asked, he would say no. Because there wasn’t a reasoning for the ‘no’ anymore. Or at least, not a good one. Without asking she could have plausible deniability. Without asking she is a romantic house guest. Asking, she could become a prisoner.

  Briar enjoyed being with him, but everyone must be worried sick about her by now. Aster, at a minimum must be devastated. If her parents cared enough to use the long distance rates to tell her brother, he would care.

  She wanted to stay in the romantic space they had created. She was excited at the thought of him. But she had a real life to get back to. She had to leave, right?

  Pepper seemed to be waiting for an answer.

  “I’m sorry,” Briar whispered.

  She did not know what she was sorry about, but she could identify that emotion more than any other. Pepper took another step to embrace her. She was much shorter, and naked. But it comforted her to have someone else so close.